Introduction
The new challenges raised by complex distributed systems have promoted the development of specific fields of Software Engineering such as Coordination or Adaptation. Coordination addresses all interaction issues among software entities (either considered as subsystems, objects, components, or more recently web services) that collaborate to provide some functionality. Limitations in the definition of component interface descriptions and the need for convenient ways to correct mismatch between them have led to the definition of a new discipline, Software Adaptation, which promotes the use of specific entities, adaptors, to guarantee the correct interaction of software components.
This special issue is a result of the First International Workshop on Coordination and Adaptation of Software Entities (WCAT’04) (Canal et al., 2004, 2005) which was held in Oslo (Norway) on June 14, 2004 in conjunction with the 18th European Conference on Object-Oriented Programming (ECOOP’2004). The workshop tried to provide a venue where researchers and practitioners on these topics could meet, exchange ideas and problems, identify some of the key issues related to coordination and adaptation, and explore together and disseminate possible solutions.
This issue begins with an introductory paper whose goal is to give the reader insights into this new discipline, Software Adaptation. There, we present the field and the motivations which led to its definition. Then, adaptation is characterized with respect to other fields in Software Engineering, and more details on what adaptation is and what it is not are given, together with its relations to Coordination. The paper then focuses on the use and interests of aspect orientation and formal methods techniques with reference to adaptation. To end, open issues are discussed. Following this introduction, the four selected papers will present the results of recent research in the field.
The first two papers address issues related to the formal description of components behaviours and protocols. In A Behavioral Model for Composition of Software Components by F. Arbab, an expressive formal behavioural model for the description of compositions of components is presented. Such a kind of models is needed to perform analysis on component architectures and, when required, to build adaptors for solving protocol compatibility problems. In particular, this is also the problem tackled by M. Tivoli and M. Autili in SYNTHESIS, a Tool for Synthesizing Correct and Protocol-Enhanced Adaptors, where a tool-equipped technique for the construction of adaptors is presented. The third paper, The Impact of Software Component Adaptation on Quality of Service Properties by S. Becker and R. Reussner, addresses a specific non functional aspect of component coordination and adaptation, namely quality of service. This is an interesting study as the construction of adaptors may threaten the efficiency of an architecture. Finally, the
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8 RSTI - L’objet – 12/2006. WCAT’04
paper Coordination in Architectural Connection. Reflective and Aspectual Introduction, by C. Cuesta et al., presents a proposal about the use of reflective and aspect oriented techniques for the description and reuse of complex coordination patterns.
From the twelve position papers presented in the workshop, seven were invited for submitting an extended and more technical version to this special issue, and four have been finally selected by an international committee whose members, in addition to the workshop organizers were :
– Jean-Pierre Briot, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France – Antonio Brogi, Università di Pisa, Italy
– Juan Hernández, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain – Antónia Lopes, Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal – Oscar Nierstrasz, Universität Bern, Switzerland – George Papadopoulos, University of Cyprus, Cyprus – Ernesto Pimentel, Universidad de Málaga, Spain
– Stefan Tai, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, USA – Robert Tolksdorf, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany – Antonio Vallecillo, Universidad de Málaga, Spain – Mirko Viroli, Università di Bologna, Italy
We gratefully thank all of them for their help in building this special issue and making up this new research community.
Carlos Canal University of Málaga, Spain
Juan Manuel Murillo University of Extremadura, Spain
Pascal Poizat University of Evry Val d’Essonne, France References
Canal C., Murillo J. M., Poizat P., “Coordination and Adaptation Techniques for Software Entities”, ECOOP 2004 Workshop Reader, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3344 Springer, 2005, p. 133-147.
Canal C., Murillo J. M., Poizat P., Eds., Workshop on Coordination and Adaptation Techniques for Software Entities at ECOOP (WCAT), 2004, http://wcat04.unex.es/
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